<p>Don’t forget time is money. You don’t want to spend all of your time cooking/cleaning.</p>
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<p>We can’t afford to “eat out” all the time and neither can my kids. A bag of coffee beans is a whole heck of a lot cheaper than $2 coffees at the stop and go. Pizza can be made as can salad. My attitude is there is no time like the present for the kids to learn out to shop smart, cook smart and eat smart…and that involves…a kitchen and a shopping bag or cart. Buy fruit in season, buy vegetables in season…buy pantry items when they are on sale.</p>
<p>I just did a quick check…here is what you can buy without coupons for $50 if you shop smart: bag of pasta, pasta sauce, head of lettuce, two boxes of cereal, gallon of milk, frozen juice, loaf of whole wheat bread, sandwich meat, cheese, tomato, fresh fruit, fresh vegetable in season, meat, rice, beans, toilet paper, dish soap and probably a few other things if you figure out the menus.</p>
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Not everybody can afford to eat out every day …</p>
<p>I’m an athlete who eats 3,000 to 3,500 calories a day with 150 grams of protein daily and just about all my required vitamins and minerals, and I could very easily manage under $200 a month - probably with some money left over, too - as long as I don’t eat out more than once or twice a month. Food at restaurants is ridiculously overpriced, so if you’re a smart shopper, then you could easily buy all that for 1/3 of the price.</p>
<p>My daughter is taking an overload of classes this semester, and has just applied for a part-time job. She will clean her own apartment and cook some meals, but she will also eat at the dining halls and go to local (inexpensive) restaurants with friends and order take-out. </p>
<p>Are college students going to hunt for coupons? No. D doesn’t have time and she doesn’t subscribe to a newspaper. If the choice is to pop into the campus dining hall and grab a meal (with a salad and protein course) or to make a box of mac&cheese, I’d rather have her pop into the dining room, even if it is $7 more. </p>
<p>I’m hoping that she learns to shop wisely and make healthy meals. She will have a reasonable amount of money each month from us, and if she spends less than that on food then she can use it for other things. But quite frankly I’d be hard-pressed to feed myself on $50/week and I’m not going to expect my college student to do it.</p>
<p>No kids won’t look for coupons but the grocery store in my first and second son’s towns had scannable cards that gave them discounts in lieu of coupons. You’d be surprised at what kids can do when they don’t have much money as Rob is pointing out. I’m always impressed but when the kids report what they are making. I also know they tend to pool money with the roomate(s) when they go grocery shopping so I have doubt the budget is enough to keep the kitchen stocked. Junk food and prepackaged food is expensive so I know that disappears fast from the grocery lists. Cheaper to make cookies than buy them. Oatmeal is cheap. Kids buy the great big tubs of cheap ice cream for $6 if they want ice cream instead of the boxes for $4 and so on. The kids are smarter and more industrious than we sometimes give them credit.</p>
<p>Hmm…my family food budget (2 parents, 1 teenage boy) is $60 a week. I definitely expect my D to manage with $50 a week! I cook dinner 2 or 3 times a week - eat leftovers the rest of the week, plus coffee and cereal for breakfast and a sandwich and fruit for lunch. I bake cookies or brownies once a week (about $1.50 a batch). Other than that, we don’t keep snacks in the house. Now that the kidss have jobs and spending money, if they want a snack they are free to go to the store. They also use their own money to go out to eat with friends. </p>
<p>I suppose its what your kids are used to. Mine are used to having limited choices at home, very few snacks and using couponns for eating out (Groupon is great!). My D, who is in an apartment, has a crockpot and loves to make a big pot of soup to eat all week.</p>
<p>We don’t do a lot of coupon clipping but even with no coupon clipping $50/week for one person is MORE than enough to eat well. I don’t spend all of my time cooking for 5, why would a college student have to spend all of her time cooking? It’s just part of growing up that you have to clean a bathroom and cook a meal once in a while. There is more than enough free time to do that. She can study while something is cooking. Also, a little planning and you can have ready to eat meals prepared quite easily. Make a roast on a Sunday afternoon, cook several baked potatoes with that roast, make soup out of the left overs. Plate up a couple helpings of the roast, potatoes and veges, cover and freeze. Pop in the microwave to eat. That one roast and 5 lbs of potatoes could make about 10 meals for one person.</p>
<p>I’m happy to allow child a larger food budget so she doesn’t have to eat food past the point of freshness.:)</p>
<p>Whoops I left “no” out of my past as in no doubt. Anyway. I feed a 6’ 4" football player H and myself for around $80 a week. I only go once a week to the store and we manage. That $80 doesn’t include alcohol, cleaning supplies or shower/teeth needs. Costs are creeping up I have noticed in the past 6 months.</p>
<p>I just asked my son if the $200 per month was enough for everything, including cleaning supplies. His response, “What cleaning supplies?” Guess I should have given him a little more ;)</p>
<p>^^^
That reminds me of a story that Ds college counselor told. Visiting her son,who I think was attending Cornell? In any case,his room overlooked a ravine. Who needs a wastebasket?</p>